Hot Keys in ZBrush Are Your Friends

Originally I was going to make this post all about setting up a custom User Interface (UI) inside ZBrush to help make the work flow easier because I feel that the default UI is not very friendly to my style and work flow. I say "style" like I have been using ZBrush for years but after just a month of use you can really get a work flow that you really like and thus, you have a style. But our instructor for Production Modeling gave us a couple of Custom UI's to use and I fell in love with one of them instantly and have been using it all month long for my assignments.

There she is... I love this UI. The most commonly used brushes for me are set up across the bottom and the Edit, Draw, Transpose, and a few other useful tools on the right side. I just make one small change because I am left handed and I HATE reaching across my Wacom Tablet to get to the "Tool" menu so I just pop it over to the left side and I leave the right side open for items like the "Stroke" menu.

So since I didn't have to make a custom UI to make life inside ZBrush easier I set about making Hotkeys for SEVERAL tools and brushes so I don't have to go looking for them. The main one being the Solo tool, because while Yes, it is on the tool bar on the right side, but on the MacBook Pro that I am using you can't see it too well on the bottom of the screen. And if you are in the middle of a Retopology project and you want to check to see how things are looking that Solo tool comes in handy but you have to find the thing. So I my instructors advice and assigned it to the "S" key in ZBrush so it would be easy to get to. That was what got me started on the path of setting up my own Hotkeys, now let me take you down that path if you are unsure how.

To start off with setting your own hotkeys I recommend writing them down so you don't forget (like I did a few times). Next up once in ZBrush (this is for the Mac mind you cause thats what I am working from) you hold down the CMD and Opt (alt) keys and click on the tool or brush you want to set up as a Hotkey. At the top of the screen you will get this message telling you to hit the key or combination of keys to act as the hotkey for that tool.

Once you pick the key you want to assign to that tool you will get a message telling you that the Hotkey is set up.

And that is really all there is to it. Super simple really. Something that I recommend and this is something that I also got from my instructor for Production Modeling was to assign the brushes you use the most to the number keys. I would start with the most common being on number "1" and working your way across. But again I am left handed so I started at "0" and worked backwards so I could keep the stylus in the ready position and not have to reach across with my right hand for my "Move" brush. One other quick thing I can recommend for making ones life much easier and way more productive inside ZBrush is to make sure you set up your HotKeys on your Tablet as well. I will save that for another post because not everyone uses a Wacom Intuos tablet.

Oh one last thing... when you close ZBrush you have an option box pop up that asks you if you want to save your Hotkeys. Please click yes so you don't have to do what I did and set them up a second time. You will thank yourself later.